


The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

by ivoryandhorn



Category: POKEMON Detective Pikachu (2019)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 14:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20565944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivoryandhorn/pseuds/ivoryandhorn
Summary: Mewtwo had rummaged around his brain so Harry knew that Mewtwo knew that he wasn’t lying about anything—about Ryme, about Clifford Enterprises, about the experiments, or his, to put it far too mildly, extremely strong misgivings about the whole production. But there was a certain usefulness in being thought of as a PI on the edge, a loose cannon with nothing and no one to lose. It was that reputation that had led Dr. Laurent to hire him in the first place.





	The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> I thought for sure this would happen in the movie so I was surprised when it didn't! So surprised that I started writing this pretty much as soon as I walked out of the theater.

The crunch of gravel faded to silence as Harry Goodman’s rented car rolled to a stop. He and Pikachu were high up in Kanto’s mountains, in a mostly neglected patch of a sprawling nature preserve. After weeks of detective work he had, through the ruin of both his coffee and yarn budgets—and maybe a little dash of smarts—managed to piece together that something was up here. Something that liked Pokémon, and avoided humans, and could probably fly or at least move pretty damn fast. Not a lot of options for what that all added up to. Though, if you hadn’t just spent the weeks he’d spent cutting up news articles and dramatically jabbing pushpins into corkboard, you could easily miss the pattern. Harry Goodman had just spent those weeks and therefore hadn’t missed it at all.

Behind him, Pikachu was twisting around fruitlessly in the booster seat that had come with the rental, trying to get a good look out the window. “Pika!” he commanded. Command received: _Get me outta here!_

“Hold on there, little buddy,” Harry Goodman said. “There’s a Mewtwo in them there hills.” He squinted out the windshield at the rocky plain in front of him. The moment he left, he’d be a sitting duck: there were only a few boulders visible, and only one, maybe two, that he could plausibly hide all his limbs and Pikachu behind. Hell, he and Pikachu were sitting ducks right now, if the reports of Mewtwo hadn’t been greatly exaggerated. 

He did not think the reports of Mewtwo had been greatly exaggerated.

On the other hand, sitting here wasn’t going to get him any closer to his goal. 

“Alright, my little lightning bug. Let’s do this.” In one decisive motion, Harry threw open his car door and then threw himself out of the car. Then, much less dramatically, he opened the back door so he could unbuckle his Pokémon. “Hey! No static.” He booped Pikachu sternly on the nose. “You know you need to be in a booster seat at all times while riding in a human vehicle.”

Pikachu growled unrepentantly and squirmed out of his seat as soon as the last buckle was undone. He bounded out over the rocks, stretching and shaking out the stiffness of the long drive up. Harry let him play for a bit, then whistled him over.

As one, they set out over the rocky plain. The only sounds were the soft howl of the wind and pebbles crunching under Harry’s boots. Pikachu stuck close: there was something funny in the atmosphere. 

It didn’t take long before Harry got sick of creeping around. This pile of rocks was enormous, and if they had to cover every square inch of it on foot they were going to be here until they were both old and grey. And that was assuming that their quarry wasn’t just avoiding them already. 

He stopped somewhere out in the open (but not too far from the nearest big-enough-to-plausibly-hide-all-his-limbs-behind boulder) and yelled into the silence: 

“Heeeere, Mewtwo Mewtwo Mewtwo!”

There was a pregnant pause. It soon gave birth to what felt distinctly like abject disbelief. 

“That’s right! It’s-a me, humanity!” Harry waved his arms in the air. “The hubris of man in one smoking hot package!”

Pikachu yanked frantically on his jeans leg. “Pika?! Pika pi! Pikachu!!!”

“Hey, hey, hey, play it cool!” Harry crouched to gently disentangle Pikachu’s paw. “I’ve got this.” He gave Pikachu’s detective hat a little tug and then stood back up. “I have two legs and I’m soooo horny for sketchy research experiments on sapient beings!”

That was right about when a streak of purple arced up out of a far-off gorge, hurtling toward Harry and Pikachu at a speed he calculated to be about _way too frickin’ fast_. The reports and blurry photos didn’t do Mewtwo justice. A lavender kangaroo-legged, cat-headed abomination with no mouth and baby-bearing hips should have looked ridiculous or possibly madness-inducing. Somehow, Mewtwo made it work: the Pokémon looked sleek and deadly in the air, a figure composed of compact and elegant muscle.

Harry waved up. “You’re a hard Pokémon to find, Mr. Mew—whoa! Hey! Stop that!” 

He dove for his Pikachu and then the nearby boulder as psychic bolts started flying. Apparently he’d pissed Mewtwo off. That had not..._not_ been part of the plan. Pikachu bapped him in the face as if to reproach him for his folly. The hubris of man, indeed.

“Calm down there, sparky cheeks. I told you, play it cool.” 

The psychic bolts paused. Harry poked his head up over the boulder. “I’m not here to capture you! Alright, I kind of am, but that’s not the point! I just want to talk! Just to talk! Read my mind!”

A sensation rolled through his head that could only be described as being poked in the brain, but not his meat brain, the other one. After an uncomfortably long time—which was to say _any time at all_—the sensation faded. Pikachu, meanwhile, had wriggled out of his arms and bounded to the top of the boulder, squeaking defiance. “Pika pi!”

Pikachu quivered with tension on the rock, fur fluffed out with static and power drenching the area with the scent of ozone. He glared up at Mewtwo, who gazed impassively back down. Something was transpiring between the Pokémon, and Harry Goodman had a feeling it was going to count a whole lot more than the spiel he’d set up in his noggin earlier that day.

Eventually, a cold voice resounded around him, low and high at once, bypassing the ears and possibly all physical space completely. _Your Pokémon will vouch for you. State your case._

It looked like Pikachu had gotten him a chance. Now was not the time to blow it by being a dumbass. 

“So, uh, Mewtwo—can I call you Mewtwo?” Harry paused, then carefully stood up. No psychic blast came to remove his head from his shoulders, so he scooped Pikachu up off the boulder and tried to tuck him into his jacket, in case he needed to make a speedy retreat. Pikachu dodged his grasp and hopped up onto his shoulders to continue growling defiance at the wonder of genetics and unwise decisions floating before them. Harry sighed and stepped around the boulder, hands up and empty: no Pokéballs, no sketchy science gizmos. Just a man and his Pokémon. 

As Mewtwo had neither confirmed nor denied his request, Harry decided it was safe to continue. “So, there’s this corporation in Ryme City. Clifford Enterprises. Have you heard of them? No? Well, they’re big in Ryme, I can tell you that. Anyway, one of their sketchy little subsidiaries has been doing experimentation on, uh, well, let’s call it evolution. They hired me to capture you.”

Mewtwo’s eyes narrowed. Power crackled in the air. Harry waved his hands frantically.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Now, that’s a problem. That’s a problem because I know what happened in Kanto. No corporation that wants you can be up to any good. I know that. Pikachu over here who’s about to singe the rest of my hair off knows that. But I don’t know what they want you _for_. And that, my friend, is also a problem. They’ve got a Dr. Laurent, a Poké-neurologist with a very bad track record, working for ‘em. That’s it. That’s all I know. Which is why I’m here to propose a deal.”

There was another one of those lengthy pauses. Mewtwo had rummaged around his brain so Harry knew that Mewtwo knew that he wasn’t lying about anything—about Ryme, about Clifford Enterprises, about the experiments, or his, to put it far too mildly, extremely strong misgivings about the whole production. But there was a certain usefulness in being thought of as a PI on the edge, a loose cannon with nothing and no one to lose. It meant that no one expected him to have any scruples. That cute little deerstalker on his Pokémon? Probably left at his house by a broad who’d cleaned out his bank account and broke his heart, not necessarily in that order. It was that reputation that had led Dr. Laurent to hire him in the first place, that let him stick his nose in shadowy places and dig up dirt to slip under Hideo’s door. (Metaphorically. Not literally. Except for that one time with the Oddish. Harry was never going near one of those things again.)

_What is it that you propose?_

Harry Goodman took a deep breath. Here was the hard part. All the fast talking wouldn’t save him if he couldn’t convince Mewtwo of his sincerity, Pikachu or mind-rummaging or no. “You _let_ me capture you. That gets me an in with Dr. Laurent and her little lab of horrors. I do some investigating, get some evidence, and once we’ve got enough to blow it all open, Pikachu and I will get you out. 

_And why should you be trusted?_

“Because… I… know that you don’t belong in human hands. Not just because of your godlike psychic powers born of ancient DNA making kissy faces with mad science. Because Pokémon are companions. They deserve respect. Not to be in a cage. Definitely not to be in a cage to further the designs of sketchy mega-corporations hiding behind benevolent PR campaigns. I know it. I believe it. Ask Pikachu.”

“Pika pika!” Pikachu piped in, which Harry assumed was some moving statement of faith and trust, one that would have had him bawling like a baby if he could have only understood a single word. 

Mewtwo rose into the sky, a graceful controlled ascent. _I do not trust you,_ that resounding voice said. _But I will trust your Pokémon, who does. I will consider your request._

“Aw, what? You’ve rifled through my brain! You know I’m telling the truth!”

_Yes. But humans are foolish creatures. Your word is nothing if you cannot keep it._

Harry sighed and dropped his arms. He scuffed the back of his head thoughtfully, then absently gave Pikachu a little skritch while his hand was up there. Pikachu purred and flopped over his head, knocking his cap askew. He straightened it. 

“Well, that’s basically what I expected,” Harry Goodman sighed. “Good thing Laurent’s not expecting me back for another, oh… three or four weeks. Let’s see what I can do to persuade you.”


End file.
